


amid a waste of wild air

by hitlikehammers



Series: Portrait of the Genius as a Young Lover [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: And Steve & Bucky Can't Handle the Idea of Losing Him, And a Side of Fluffy Stupid Pet-Names, Angst with a Happy Ending, As In: Three Adults All Loving One Another As Equals, Drama & Romance, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Love, M/M, Polyamory, Recovered Memories, Romance, Rooftop Conversations/Confrontations, Tony Stark Figuring Out That Relationships Are Fucking Hard, Tony Stark Has A Heart, but so worth it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-02
Updated: 2017-08-02
Packaged: 2018-12-09 23:24:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11679261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hitlikehammers/pseuds/hitlikehammers
Summary: Steve's off on a mission. Tony thinks Bucky's been with him. Realizing that he isn't is concerning, sure, but whatever's happened? Bucky can take care of himself—Tony knows.However: finding Bucky on top of the Empire State Building, and figuring outwhyhe'd disappeared without a word? That's concerning. That is nearly goddamnedheartbreaking, and Tony needs to fucking fix it.Tony needs to fix it, because the idea of anything less is unbearable. Because Tony Stark is in love with these freezer-burnt idiots who somehow like having him around in kind, and he'll be damned if he loses them; loses this.He'll bedamned.Sequel tolike a cork upon a tide.





	amid a waste of wild air

**Author's Note:**

  * For [speakmefair](https://archiveofourown.org/users/speakmefair/gifts).



> [speakmefair](http://archiveofourown.org/users/speakmefair) asked for Tony/Bucky a while back for my prompt-a-thon—I knew I'd probably have to go threesome instead, and after a great deal of time I came back to this iteration on said theme. But this one does star Tony and Bucky on-screen _within_ said threesome, so maybe it counts? And it's very very late for that, but not AS late for her birthday, so happy belated birthday, doll. Hope it was spectacular.
> 
> Love and absolute wonder at the skill and amazingness of [weepingnaiad](http://archiveofourown.org/users/weepingnaiad), as ever <3
> 
> As before: title credit James Joyce.

“I should be back tomorrow,” the line’s crackly; Tony makes a mental note to install his network on the rest of SHIELD’s super secret comms—he deserves better quality, frankly. “Friday at the latest—”

“You should be what?” Tony cuts in distractedly, only half-played-up; he’s tinkering with a new propulsion system, and with the idea of throwing DUM-E out a fucking window, but it’s a call from Steve, who’s been away on a mission for a week, and yes, Tony misses him, and yes, he’s relishing the sound of Steve’s voice just a little bit more than is defensible as anything but sappy bullshit, so hell if Tony’s even going to admit it out loud. 

“Sorry, very important trial runs happening, wasn’t paying you any attention at all.”

There’s not even a scoff; barely a pause before the response: 

“You’re a dick.”

“You’re coming back? From what?” Tony tosses back airily. “Were you gone somewhere?”

“More of a dick,” Steve says flatly: stone fact.

“ _Are_ you gone somewhere, now?” Tony follows up, makes no audible indication of the way the wire sparks against his knuckle; and yes maybe that wouldn’t have happened if Tony hadn’t shooed DUM-E away, and no, DUM-E cannot look at him judgingly, he’s a fucking robot, he’s not even a he, he’s an _it_ , shut up.

“If you’re gone, sugarbear, I swear I didn’t notice.”

 _There_ it is. There’s the long-suffering sigh.

“Why do I put up with you?” 

Tony snorts.

“No fucking idea.”

“I suppose I can let it slide,” Steve shoots back; Tony loves how much of a snarky fuck his lover is; both of his lovers, but Steve was the surprise. “Not like the bed’s empty. At least _you’ve_ got someone keeping _you_ warm.”

Tony pauses at that, though he recovers quick, because: not true.

Bed’s empty. _Been_ empty. Bucky left shortly after Steve; gone in the night—unpleasant, but not unheard of, and Tony’d had a vague outline of the clandestine work Steve was up to, so the call-in of his typical back-up made sense: again, not unprecedented. It’s what they all did, who they all are. Tony didn’t dig, or push.

Tony is, very quickly, beginning to think he should have.

“Reynolds Wrap get reassigned?” Tony says, doesn’t let himself think twice about it but he keeps his tone even.

“Hmm?” Steve, on the other hand, has nothing like an even tone at all when it comes to this, to them.

“Oh, nothing,” Tony cover easily; he’s not the best liar when it comes to Steve, worse with with RoboSpy, but he’s got to make this one good, because Steve’s a worrier. Steve is a worrier about _everything_ , but Tony’s never seen someone who worries more about anything than Steve Rogers worries about James Buchanan Barnes. 

Which is not to say Tony isn’t worried; but maybe it’s the fact that Tony met Bucky at another point in his life, as a different iteration of himself—Tony trusts, knows, that Bucky can take care of himself and yes he worries, but he trusts, too, that Bucky knows fairly well how to cover his own ass.

It balances, at least a little better, than Steve’s knee-jerk response of having a minor heart attack. 

“I thought you were on a joint,” Tony hums, a verbal wave of his wrist; “thing. But as I said. Not paying any attention at all.”

“Bucky’s not there?” The tone is stoic, sharp, and Tony hears terror in it. Damage control, then.

“Not presently,” Tony shrugs, because walking that one back would do more harm than good. “Though you know how it is. Super secret spy fuckwhat.” Tony snorts. “Our _clearance_ probably didn’t check out.”

Which is true, on one hand. S.H.I.E.L.D. had reinstated some degree of hierarchy, among that being the godawful idea of _levels_. Steve and Tony shared steady clearance at Level 8. When Bucky was fully integrated and sent on missions, he’d required exceptions so frequently that he’d been cleared for Level 9—simply for expediency, really, because “compartmentalism” was taking too damn much of everyone’s time for no good reason—but Bucky lorded it over Steve and Tony whenever the chance arose; and sometimes even when it didn’t. 

So there’s no _way_ they wouldn’t have heard of it happening, even if the _what_ was unclear.

“I thought he was on leave,” Steve says, voice a little hollow, and Tony knows him well enough now to realize what’s going on beneath, filling and buzzing in that emptiness to the point of full collapse.

“You know that kind of shit doesn’t hold water,” Tony says, flippant as he can so as to ease the fear, before he makes a promise so as to seal the deal: “But I’ll make some calls, see if we’re allowed to know where Metal Mouth went.”

And finally, something snide. A distraction, which works because while it’s small, Steve scoffs, and that’s enough.

“The metal’s not in his mouth,” Steve protests: weak, but there. 

“But I like when it’s in _my_ mouth,” Tony says meaningfully; “don’t even pretend that you _don’t_.”

Steve groans, and Tony grins: mission accomplished.

“Let me know what you find out,” Steve says, voice heavy with it but a little less tight.

“You know I can’t,” Tony reminds him: Steve’s allowed to use secure channels to reach out, but he’s considered dark for incoming contact. “Secret mission, uncharted space, or maybe not that, probably wrong movie?”

“You’re _you_ ,” Steve shoots back, a full-on command in the tone. “You’ll let me know.”

Tony snorts.

“Someday, you’re going to stop getting off on trying to order me around with that big-Captain-on-campus schtick.”

“Someday, it’s going to work.”

Tony doesn’t dignify that bullshit with a response.

“Hurry back, honeybun,” he singsongs instead: “I’ll have JARVIS run scans again, make sure there’s nothing we’ve missed in the defrost, or else, no, what would it be by now, _late_ -onset dementia, to think you’ll ever get me to heel.”

“Tony—”

“Unless that’s what I’m in the mood for, but then really, I’m kind of calling _you_ to heel, in making _me_ —”

“Again,” Steve cuts him off: “you’re a fucking asshole.”

“Technically, you didn’t describe me as an _asshole_ yet in this particular conversation,” Tony points out, just a little gleefully. “So the use of _again_ isn’t really applicable.”

“Good _bye_ , Tony.”

Tony sighs deeply as soon as the line disconnects, and realigns his thinking to the issue at hand: Bucky.

Tony might not be as worried as Steve, but he is worried.

Difference being: Tony’s got an idea where his personal Bicentennial Bolshevik might just be.

And much as he trusts Bucky Barnes to be okay; Tony prays to…

Well, Tony prays probably to Thor, really, or some shit, that he’s right.

_______________________________

 

Tony is right. He’s always right, after all.

He can’t believe he ever doubted that. What insanity. He’s disappointed in himself.

The top of the Empire State Building is familiar by now, and Tony’s out of the suit before he approaches Bucky; he knows Bucky’s heard him, but the man doesn’t flinch, doesn’t turn: he never does, when Tony finds him here.

Tony’s never asked outright, but he thinks he has at least enough capacity for insight—if only _just_ —but he figures it’s familiar enough that it grounds Bucky when something hits him: a memory, an event, something small that sends him reeling for all the years stolen from him, the humanity denied him, the torment inflicted upon him: relentless. He figures there’s something of home in the structure under his feet.

He’s always southward: and not to Brooklyn, somehow Tony knows that. He’s looking toward the Freedom Tower.

Proof of where he is. And when.

“Fancy meeting you here.”

Tony doesn’t get a step in before Bucky’s voice growls, murmurs: cold. Flat.

“Stay back.”

But Tony’s never been a good listener.

“I mean it,” Bucky says, voice hard. “I _mean_ it,” he growls, and turns in a single motion, physically posed as a threat in a way Tony rarely sees. “Stay the fuck _back_ , Stark.”

More than the lines of his body, it’s the use of the name _Stark_ that makes Tony pause.

“Fine, fine.” Tony raises his hands, rooting his feet.

“Here good? Enough personal-bubble for your delicate sensibilities?” Tony tests the waters by leaping in. Humor’s a defense mechanism, but more often than not it’s what creates the _reason_ to mount a defense in the first place.

Tony’s never really learned, in that. Whatever.

“It’s not a fucking _game_ ,” Bucky hisses, eye narrowed to the point where Tony can’t read them, and maybe that’s for the best. Tony’s a little bit hesitant to see whatever’s there right now. Or more than that: what _isn_.

“Whatever you say, sugarplum.” 

For lack of any other reaction, Bucky just steps back: further from Tony, and closer toward the ledge.

“Memory, then?” Tony ventures; it’s usually that. “Flashback?” he tries again, when there’s no answer. 

But still nothing.

“Something else,” Tony tries, hedges; “something new?”

He’s _trying_ , goddamnit. He _is_. He _wants_ to help. Bucky usually lets him, even if it takes some nudging.

“You need to leave.”

Right. More nudging then.

“Try again.”

“You need,” Bucky snarls, even if that’s not what it is; it’s too deep, too torn from somewhere too raw; “to _leave_.”

So, maybe Tony was right. This is something other. This is something deadly.

This _is_ something new. Tony breathes in deep.

Okay.

“I’m still getting the hang of this shit, you know that,” Tony says, walking up to the ledge himself, but at enough distance that he’s no threat; Bucky’s eyes are on him in a way Tony can’t see, can only feel, and Tony pushes its boundaries, but doesn’t break them. He can’t help but pose the challenge, but he respects Bucky enough to not go too far.

Well. Not yet, at least.

“But I can’t even make a go at the helping thing, if you don’t tell me what’s up.” Tony’s an engineer. Diagnose the problem before he can make repairs. 

He understands that. He doesn’t waver—doesn’t need to _learn_ , in that.

“I,” Bucky's voice is softer; Tony wonders whether Bucky knows it. “I can’t—” he falters, and Bucky’s expression hardens; that time, he definitely knows.

“You need to go,” Bucky spits out, almost vicious, but it’s followed by that dropping expression, crumpling just for a blink before walling off again, save that his voice is a little desperate when he adds:

“Please.”

The fact that he says it at all, means everything.

“Nope.” 

Tony’s a stubborn bastard. He’s not ashamed of that, hell. Point of pride, really. 

“ _Tony_ —”

“Right, okay, let’s try this another way, hmm?” Tony dives in, flying blind, but it’s not as if it’s the first time. Running before he walks.

It hasn’t fucked him over yet, well. Not _too_ much. 

“Can you tell me _why_ you can’t tell me whatever it is that you should be telling me, that’s bothering you, so I can _try_ to help?”

“No.”

Tony shakes his head. Crosses his arms and stares Bucky down. He doesn’t expect to win, but it doesn’t stop him.

“Not buying it.”

There’s silence. Not a particularly charged silence, but a meaningful one. Heavy.

And then:

“I can’t tell you,” Bucky gives a little, voice low, and he _does_ break eye contact, then. And it throws Tony off, makes him unsteady, and ramps his concern up to almost-Steve levels, because Bucky never loses a good staring contest, even in the worst moments, the more dire situations.

Tony never wins, not in _this_.

“I cannot fucking _tell_ you, Tony,” Bucky says, grit out between clenched teeth, eyes pleading where his words can’t, but don’t have to. “You need to go.”

Tony, though: Tony doesn’t often know what he needs, but here? Now?

Here, he knows _exactly_ what he needs, and it is the very opposite of going anywhere.

“Look,” Tony sighs, just as heavy as the silence; “just in case you didn’t get it the first time, or literally _every other fucking time_ I’ve made it painstakingly clear, I am fucking bad at this relationship stuff,” he looks, tries to find some hint of reaction from Bucky, but there’s nothing. That’s usually a sign that things are worse than if there’d been any expression at all.

“But.”

Tony Stark built a suit of armor in a cave with scraps, once. He may not know this particular ‘worse’, but he’ll weather it to get to the other side of the storm, if that’s where Bucky is: on the other side.

Or stuck in the middle, just shy of the eye: spinning.

“Nothing you’re gonna tell me is going to make me less inclined to take you to bed as soon as humanly possible.”

So the words aren’t the smoothest. They don’t show as much of the heart he’s learned to square with better than before but still holds back, more often than not. They’re not what he hoped for them, exactly, but Tony trusts Bucky to cover his own ass, most of the time.

And Tony trusts Bucky just the same, even like this, to know precisely what Tony had hoped to say.

“It’s not—” Bucky starts, but Tony’s tongue moves without his permission, proof that he has that stupid ass heart makes itself known beyond the glass box he took too literally, for far too long.

“Or make me feel any different,” he adds, awkward and gangly and like a second thought, when it’s anything but. “Or need you any different. Okay?”

And Tony expects scoffing, or shock maybe, that Tony himself would even say it. He doesn’t expect what comes, straight like fact and unwavering; though maybe, probably, he should have.

“You’re wrong.”

Tony’s mouth is open to shut that down ASAP, but Bucky beats him to it.

“If you won’t go, I will.”

And Tony’s mouth, for once, at that, snaps the hell shut.

“You’d just leave? Now?” If Tony’s jaw is loose, then his throat, his _chest_ is as tight as he thinks he can stand, and for a heart that’s been free of impending doom for years, now?

Tony remembers the feeling of shards teasing every frantic pulse like the lines in his palms, like the breath in his lungs and the feeling of metal and wiring beneath his hands. 

It’s not something he ever wanted to remember so closely, ever again.

“What about,” Tony falters, and the way that happens now is a thing he had to get used to; is still getting used to—how vulnerable he stands inside this world of what they are.

How weak he is in the face of what it could mean to lose.

“What about Steve, huh?” is what Tony says. What he means, what’s under those words is _what about this, what about what we have, what about me, goddamnit, I thought I, I thought, we—_

_What about me?_

The way Bucky’s face falls, the most feeling yet shown: the way it falls is cold comfort.

But there _is_ comfort in it.

“I don’t _want_ to—”

“Then fucking _don’t_ ,” Tony snaps, pleads. Because it hurts, but still: he’s weak.

God _damnit_.

“If I don’t, _you_ will!”

Bucky yells it, eyes blazing; breaks any sense of control.

“And I can’t,” Bucky turns, hands in his hair as his voice jumps a pitch and he reels just as he unravels, cracked open at jagged edges, splintered at his seams.

“You’ll have every right and then, then—” Bucky’s breath catches, and Tony’s heart jumps, cuts for the despair laced in that sound, the sob it holds but won’t let loose.

“I can’t lose you,” Bucky says, low and gravelly in the way that only comes when something gets torn out of the deepest of places, the truest of selves: Tony knows that. Tony knows that because it makes him shiver, makes him uncomfortable, on edge.

Tony knows that because he still wishes he could have that; still dares to hope one day he’ll know how to dig that deep and give.

“I can’t lose you, but you’re going to, we’re,” Bucky’s voice cracks and he shakes his head, hair hanging in a curtain about his face. “You’re gonna leave because like it or not, we’ll lose, you’ll be—”

And there it is: there’s the sob that can’t stay down, that makes it clear to Tony that now they’re not talking about walking away. They’re talking about _rotting_ away.

Fuck.

“And I don’t know what I’ll do then, but until the last goddamn breath I can pretend it’s not there, that it’s not coming and I can just,” Bucky sucks in a hard, hasty, hateful breath; “I can just pretend it’s not there and won’t be there but if I don’t get that, if _we_ don’t get that, if you walk away of your own goddamn free will and aren’t, aren’t _taken_ by something I can’t stop or protect you from, if,” and he’s rambling now, and Tony’s got an agile kind of brain, he really does, no bombast involved, but even he’s having trouble following this in logic; but in heart, in feeling—

Even Tony knows how much fear this holds.

“But if I leave,” Bucky says, jaw clenched and eyes bright; “in this, if I leave, then I never have to lose you _because_ of _me_ ,” he says it like it’s definitive, like it’s a no-win scenario and a hail-mary and a given long since conceded to the dark. “If I’m the one who goes than I never have to know that. I don’t...”

Tony sighs, but takes his in at the pause, the trailing off:

“You’re not making any _sense_ —”

“I can’t lose you.”

And that’s the knife’s edge, isn’t it; that’s the breaking point and the only thing that _does_ make sense in any of this. 

Tony doesn’t know how to breathe through, how to feel for it, because he knows that it’s true, somehow undeniable, and yet he still can’t fathom it. Someone who cannot lose _him_.

Huh.

“Maybe it’s the coward’s way but I don’t care,” Bucky starts gasping around words too quickly again, choking with them; “I will be a coward, I can stand that, but I _can’t_ lose you. So if you lose me,” he huffs, and shakes his head. 

“ _You_ can lose me, both of you can lose me, like I never came back at all, but I _can’t_ —”

And no. No, Tony may not have a full grasp of what all the feeling does, how it fits, but he knows how it sits in him, shakes in his blood. He knows what it _means_ , and this?

This can’t stand. The world has enough lies in it, Tony knows that, Tony _adds_ to that, but this: this can’t be one of them

This can _never_ be one of them.

“Bucky,” Tony says with as much weight as he can; tries to shape his voice into a hand on that cheek coaxing that face to turn, those eyes to meet his own; it takes everything in him not to move closer, consequences be damned and do just that. “Look at me.”

Bucky keeps his face averted, but Tony can see his lashes flutter; he thinks he’s got those eyes on him from under that curtain of hair; he thinks—he knows.

He feels it, that gaze. He _knows_.

It’s what gives him the courage, helps him find the goddamn balls to speak a truth into the world that means more than most of the things Tony can fathom, let alone shape into words.

“There is _nothing_ you can say, that would make a goddamn difference,” Tony says, matter-of-fact because to make it soft would make it too _hard_ : “not to,” and Tony gestures, fumbles, swallows hard before he lands on it: 

“Not to _this_.”

“Stop,” Bucky croaks; Tony hasn’t moved, so he must mean the words. “Stay, just,” and he’s flailing, Tony can see it, and he wants to reach, wants to feel a little bit more and isn't that strange, isn’t that a marvel?

“Stay there,” and Bucky’s pleading, now; cracking wide. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

Tony blinks at that; frowns deep.

“The _fuck_ are you talking about?” It’s unfathomable: Bucky. Hurting him.

The other way round’s been a learning curve, but Bucky’s maybe more gentle at his core than Tony could ever have guessed. Giving and generous and willing to take on the evils of life to spare those he loves and Tony didn’t, still doesn’t know what to do with it sometimes, maybe most times, but the idea of _Bucky_ hurting _him_ —

“I remembered.”

Tony looks up at that; sees the torment in Bucky’s eyes.

“Right.” Because yes. Right. Fucking duh. That’s just about the only thing that could twist Bucky like this, could make him bleed without a single drop of red.

“They sent me,” Bucky says, more a cornered animal than Tony’s comfortable watching; more than he wants to feel the echo of in himself in a moment like this, when he needs to be better, more solid for someone other than himself. “I didn’t know, I couldn’t have _known_ —”

“I know,” Tony tries to calm him, talk him down; puts his palms out even if he can’t move forward, reaches as far as his body’ll allow; “everyone knows, you were tortured. None of it was on you, not once, you were—”

“It was your parents!”

Tony likes to think he’s fairly prepared for the unexpected, these days. Not like a fucking boy scout, but he does okay.

He did _not_ see that one coming.

“Jesus, Tony,” Bucky rasps, collapsing in on himself somehow without moving a fucking muscle. “I killed your mom and dad.”

Tony doesn’t know when he started gaping like a fucking fish, blinking like an idiot. He only realizes it when Bucky looks up, eyes rimmed with red and breaks just that little bit more with the sight of him fucking struck still, goddamnit.

God _damnit_.

“I’m not going to pretend I know how to apologize for that,” Bucky whispers, harsh and fierce and too much like a goodbye. “I’m not going to insult you by trying and I’d flay myself alive to take it back, but,” he shakes his head and tries a deep breath that fails, and that hurts more to see, to hear than most things Tony knows. “But I can’t. I can’t, and so I have to—”

“Buck,” Tony starts, because he’s beginning to feel as desperate as Bucky had, before he’d spilled out to something hollow.

“I have to go, because how could you stand to look at me, to touch me, to breathe the same fucking _air_ , let alone share,” and Bucky’s voice breaks, and he turns away, and Tony’d never understood how a person could break for someone else—they could hurt, and feel, sure, that made sense, but _how_ a crack in a voice transposed to a crack in a heart he’d never known and had called bullshit flat out, until—

Until.

“Bucky, stop—” 

“And I could hurt you!” Bucky turns to him again, frantic. “If I could hurt them, I mean, fuck, _fuck_ Howard was my _friend_ and if I could, what if I, I can’t live with this but if I hurt _you_ , I’d—”

“James!” 

And that does the trick, as Tony’d fucking hoped it could: to call him that. To take him out of the norm and say the name that Tony used for him, sometimes—used to whisper or pant or moan in his ear, just for them as Bucky’d murmur in his ear _Anthony, Edward, Stark_ sometimes, like touchstones or ripples in a lake, for reasons neither of them could describe but that made something in Tony’s chest burn so fucking sweet because they know each other, hold this close as they are, as they stand and breathe in the now, and there's something beautiful in it, freeing in it, to be reminded of something that’s built from square one—like the way Bucky said _babydoll_ , and Steve would flip _babe_ right back without a thought, and Steve called Tony honeyplum because they’d crossed wires with autocorrect once between sugarplum and honeybear and Tony’d grabbed for sugarbear: but James.

 _James_ , between Tony and Bucky; that is theirs within what’s all of theirs, and in this moment it does its fucking job.

It stops Bucky in his tracks.

“James,” Tony says again, careful. “I know.”

But _fuck_ : Bucky’s expression just crumples where it shouldn’t have been able to; there shouldn’t have even _been_ a way to fall apart _more_ , but Bucky finds it, goddamnit, god _damnit_ —

“Then,” Bucky looks like he’s reeling, like someone just slapped him hard across the face: breathless, mouth open, fight or flight starting to kick in beyond even Bucky’s control. “Then get the fuck _away_ , I could—”

“No,” Tony scrambles, has to salvage this; _somehow_ he has to _save_ this, _fuck_.

“I mean,” Tony backtracks, tries to make it clear without saying it outright, because he has a feeling that might just make it worse: “I _know_.”

He waits for the inflection to sink in, or else start to, before he adds: 

“I always did.”

It’s silent on the outside, between them, for a long stretch of beats. There’s a breeze that Tony didn’t notice before, that he feels now. It’s softer than his pulse, though, so he doesn’t hear it howl, and he only barely hears when a word breaks the still—hears it for seeing it, because he never took his eyes off Bucky’s face, gone blank in those endless moments and still empty even as his lips move:

“What?”

And this: this Tony can manage. This is the clincher, the key play: Tony can’t fucking fumble this one but here’s the thing.

This is what Tony is _good_ at.

“Come on,” Tony scoffs, sets the scene and the tone, because of Tony Stark’s many gifts, running his fucking mouth does not rank far from the top, and thank god for that here; now—please.

 _Please_ , let that be enough here. Now.

“Agent Mindblowing Duplicity dumps SHIELD’s files for the world to see, do you think I didn’t have routines and subroutines running 24/7 on that shit?” Tony crosses his arms, sizes up the situation; there’s no tell in Bucky, but the lack of a tell is permission, at least, to keep going. Keep trying.

“I figured out they were a hit,” Tony nods; “and I figured out what my father had, what he’d made,” and Tony fights a shiver, because dear ol’ _fucking dad_ Jesus Christ; and they ragged on _Tony_ for not knowing when to leave well enough alone.

“Put two and two together on what a particular classified Stark Industries Project _Birthright_ really was, cross-listed at SHIELD with Peggy Carter’s signature all over it and dismantled just after my parents’ funeral,” he tilts his head at Bucky like it doesn’t kill him a little, just to think about the reality, the horrible, heart-wrenching layers of the thing he’s about to say: “and what they did to you, what they did with you, it _was_ a ghost, an echo,” 

Bucky’s still. Bucky’s barely breathing, motionless, and Tony’s blood, Tony’s _bones_ go cold with it.

He _cannot fuck this up_.

“But I had a hell of a butler as a kid, y’know?” Tony walks straight, no nearer to Bucky than he was already, just a little bit closer to the ledge, taking in the skyline. “And he always brought a flashlight, a fucking _torch_ ,” Tony mocks up the accent, shit at it, but hears it in his own head just right. 

“And he’d come up the stairs to show the ghosts for what they were,” Tony’s tempted to lose himself in the memory, as much a comfort as a burden for the guilt that Tony didn’t know what it would mean until it was gone. 

“He’d hum a stupid fucking song I never even knew, can’t even find so it had to have just been something he made up,” and god _damn_ , how he’d tried; for years, he’d fucking tried. “But he made his own fucking echoes so he could sound out whatever wasn’t under the goddamned bed because I was a stupid, scared kid and he was the one who cared.”

Tony doesn’t expect to be breathless, then; doesn’t expect to hurt just to look at Bucky in those moments and fucking hope that this; that _he_ is enough.

“And I took that, and I made him immortal, and he,” Tony stops, before he trips, before he cracks where he can’t afford to because he has to be strong, he had to hold this tight and shore this up and make it okay, make them okay, maybe Bucky, Bucky…

“He still knows how to follow the echoes, and find the ghosts,” Tony says, as soon as his voice can be trusted again. “So yeah.” 

Tony looks up; looks up, and that’s the only way he knows he’d been staring at his feet—he looks up, and meets Bucky’s eyes, wide enough to drown in, and raw enough to bleed.

“I knew.”

The silence is impossible. They're high above the fray of a sleepless city, sure, and yet whatever comes over them in that endless moment is unbearable, the percussive deafness after an explosion and Tony remembers those, _that_ all too well, life and living sucked from the air around you, the vacuum of a void and Tony needs it not to last, he needs it—

“How?”

The word is a rasp, but it shatters the still and breaks through and Tony would never say as much but he nearly goddamn weeps for it. 

“How what?”

Bucky frowns, scoffs, eyes too bright himself as he throws answers like daggers without any intended target, and all the more dangerous for the fact they can't be guessed. 

“How could you look at me?” Bucky snaps, pleads, mourns. “How could you,” and the look on his face tears Tony in two, cuts through the pump-and-give of his pulse more unforgiving than any shrapnel, any cold threat of a battery in a cave.

“ _How_ could you,” Bucky chokes, so close to breaking which says the most of them all because of the three of them, Bucky has the strongest resolve, the deepest need to hold fast for everyone, including himself: selflessness and survival all rolled into one and if Bucky’s about to break Tony damn well knows he'll likely follow 

“How could you,” Bucky says again, shakes his head and gestures between them as his voice cracks: “this—”

“This?”

And Tony doesn't ask it because he lacks comprehension; because he can't see what Bucky’s trying to point toward. And Tony’s never been one to lay down on the wire and let someone climb over on their own; no—Tony’s gonna cut the wire and run, and maybe it’s stupid, probably _he's_ stupid but also, he's in love. He's so goddamn in love that he'll kill for it, die for it, and he'll be as stupid as he has to be to try and make it stay. 

So much as Bucky watched his every breath, measured the distance between them with his eyes: much as Tony’s respected that best he can, up to now?

He cuts the wire, and closes the gap between them. 

Tony would say he's at Bucky’s side before Bucky can stop him, but the impossibility that such a thing is? Tony knows he's at Bucky’s side because Bucky lets him get that close. And that's a damn good sign. 

And so it's likely stupid, and more than just likely sappy and sordid and sentimental, but Tony reaches for Bucky's right hand and slides it up the undershirt Tony wears beneath the suit, right against the ridge of scar tissue from the reactor. Tony's heart is pounding but he does his best not to falter, or flinch as Bucky's hand settles atop it, as Tony dares to lay a palm on the same angry-raised flesh at the line of metal on Bucky's arm: dares to feel Bucky's pulse where Tony’s fingertips stretch out toward the collarbone: even faster. 

“Tony?” And Bucky's scared, no; Bucky's fucking terrified, but what keeps Tony’s hands on Bucky—firm on the other man’s shoulder and light against Bucky's own hand at Tony's chest—is the other thing it's clear that Bucky's feeling then and there. 

And that thing is _hope_. 

“Shared life experience, right?” Tony says softly. “You know what I’ve done. What I let happen on my watch, what’s on my hands.” His fingers twitch for the reminder, visceral, and of course Bucky feels it, and knows every inch.

“How could _you_ look at _me_? Touch me,” Tony asks the questions in kind, hoping like hell himself, now, that he can overcome his own fear of the answers, the unvanquishable voice, sinister in the back of his mind that sneers, declares with certainty despite any evidence that this can't, won't _last_ : “Feel, y’know, things, for me…”

“Love you.”

It's not the first time Bucky’s said it, of course, but it feels different. It's automatic, unweighted and straight from somewhere deep without wavering, and after; in the _midst_ of _this_ , it means something new and the heat in Tony's chest for it, the sweet twist and the burn: it could light cities, or rival stars. 

“I,” Bucky swallows hard, and Tony can't fucking breathe—like a harlequin romance, goddamn, but he can't _breathe_ before Bucky says it, hand still fitted over Tony’s heart:

“I _love_ you.”

Tony's all white noise and a beating heart in the wake of those words, but he does have enough presence of self beyond turning into a touchy-feely blob to give the voice that taunts him a great big _fuck you_. 

“You didn’t know what was happening,” Bucky turns his hand at Tony's sternum and wraps his grasp around Tony’s wrist, raises it to speak along the thin skin against bone. 

“You didn’t make the calls for those strikes, didn’t make those deals under the table with open eyes, with any sort of intent,” and they're not just platitudes, or excuses, or things said to make Tony feel better. They're meant with everything that lives and dies in the fire of those strange-storm eyes, and Tony didn't realise how much he needed them, those words with that fire and feeling, until they hit, and sink straight in. 

“I wasn’t your finger on a goddamn button, Tony,” Bucky says, fervent on the one hand, and unflinching, brooking no argument on the other in a way Tony won't ever put to words, but makes him sit up and take note like nothing else. 

Or else: probably won't put to words. Maybe in the bedroom. Someday. 

Maybe someday in the bedroom. 

But now: now is different. Now is for something bigger and fuller and so much more real and necessary and crucial. 

Now, he lets Bucky’s confidence overcome him, lets the words wash over and warm for just a moment, just until the point gets made and when Bucky’s hands reach out and fit the line of Tony’s jaw on either side, strong and warm—yeah.

For now: Tony thinks he can do this. Can drive this in, make this whole and safe, and—yeah.

For now, Tony thinks he’s done okay.

“You made weapons but you didn’t point and shoot, you never made that call. And you know that I’ve never,” Bucky’s thumbs had been moving back and forth along Tony’s cheek, and they stop suddenly, and Tony stills to keep himself from leaning into the absence, a silent ask: it’s like Bucky’s only just realized the distance has been crossed. It’s like Bucky’s deciding in those breaths what to do, where to run, fight or flight or give, fucking fall and trust that Tony of all unworthy motherfuckers will catch him because he’ll try, he’ll goddamn _try_ —

And Bucky’s hands stay, almost tighten, and Tony breathes as Bucky murmurs fierce:

“I’d _never_ —”

“And _I’d_ never,” Tony lets his head slip, suddenly exhausted, suddenly relieved as he speaks to the hollow of Bucky’s throat, lips wet at the skin, at the pulse there like rapid fire and want. 

“You’re not a shadow, you’re not a ghost. You maybe,” Tony swallows, and Bucky stills again, but it’s quicker this time before arms wrap around Tony’s body and hold him close like he’s the only solid thing in all the word, in that moment. 

“You maybe carry both, but you’re here and you’re real, and I,” Tony breathes deep and pulls back only enough to look up and meet Bucky’s eyes and hopes it all shows through for the words he can’t ever find.

“I’d never.” Bucky’s eyes are so wide, and Tony thinks the meaning goes in, even if it can’t sink deep; might never, but that’s fine. That’s fine, because maybe they’ll have the time to just keep saying it.

“Okay?” 

Bucky doesn’t answer, but kisses the side of Tony’s face while the arms around Tony’s body shake and Tony holds back just as tight but wills himself steady: he’s got to.

He’s fucking _got_ to.

“Right,” he says, reaching to run hands from Bucky’s shoulders down his arms and if he stops at the elbows and grips, it’s only because Bucky’s leaning into him; letting him hold and keep. 

“So, not that the view isn’t stunning, but,” Tony shrugs, tilts his head to catch Bucky’s gaze: “Maybe there’s a better place to take this?”

Tony slides his hands to Bucky’s wrists, and puts thumbs to the centers of broad palms as he murmurs:

“Let’s get you home, yeah?”

Bucky doesn't answer, or nod, or speak a damned word. What he does do is pull Tony into him again, tucked into his neck just so and he breathes him in from the line of his jaw to the crown of his head: holds him tighter than should be possible even with superhuman strength, because it's not just physical. It's a tightness, a need and a closeness and a promise not to let go that is more than skin deep by far.

And Bucky doesn't need to answer, or else; that's enough of an answer in itself. 

All the answer Tony needs. 

_______________________________

“So.”

They’ve been quiet for hours now, curled on the bed, sharing heat and the feel of their bodies and nothing more because in this, with Bucky and Steve, Tony’s started to learn something he thinks he should have learned a long time ago: _nothing more_ can be _everything_ , in its way.

But they’ve been quiet for hours, Tony against Bucky’s chest in a way it took Tony a long time to understand, but that he’d learned was the best way to comfort the other man—to let him hold and keep, buried and burrowed into Tony’s frame where Tony’s draped over his chest, weight and heat that strong arms can wrap around and guard as much as they seek reassurance, as much as Tony’s presence and the continued proof of his body against Bucky’s body is a balm, somehow, the completion of a circuit, full-circle. And Tony’d watched it first, natural between Bucky and Steve from the start, before he’d trusted it, trusted himself to be held, because he was a genius. A playboy. A philanthropist. A billionaire.

He directed. He took. When he deigned to give, he gave magnanimously.

Not vulnerably.

But he’s learning, like this. And they’ve been quiet, for hours: like this.

Tony presses lips to Bucky’s sternum on the inhale, and Bucky’s hand flattens where it rests across Tony’s chest, thumb a metronome over the bud of Tony’s left nipple.

“So.” 

And it’s a gorgeous feeling, beyond any logic, that word breathed out soft and sure, calm and felt as much there under Tony’s mouth.

Tony’s not sure whether it’s best to say what he’s about to say. But Tony hasn’t been sure of much of this—much of anything, everything, but especially all _this_ —save that he loves. Tony’s started to realize that he’s always loved, and hard, but most often his work, with things that didn’t have the capacity to love back, but now.

Now it’s different, and Tony’s not sure of anything, let alone of what he’s about to say, but he’s sure that he loves.

And he thinks he’s sure—here, now, down from a roof-ledge and a heartbreak and world away from here and now: Tony thinks he can be sure, as anything could ever be, of the fact that he’s loved, too.

“There's something,” Tony traces the curve of his fingernail across the scars on Bucky’s chest before he sighs. “I didn't want to say anything until I knew for sure what we were looking at.”

Bucky’s still, unnaturally, and that’s what betrays him first, where other lungs would gasp or hearts would pound: Bucky goes still. 

Tony leans harder into him, turns his head to tilt upward, to look until Bucky glances down and holds his eyes.

“Do you remember,” Tony says, fingertip still drawing along Bucky’s skin. “It was, I mean, early days, fuck.”

And it was, goddamn. It was at the beginning when Tony was toying with how long he could possibly play the good-time third wheel—made for hot nights and fun antics in between—when the floor gave the fuck out and he’d been half asleep, and one half of his favorite vintage-style beefcake sandwich had brought up ideas that were really close to _promise_ , and the other hand mentioned something teetering real fucking close to _forever_ and Tony hadn’t been able to fucking swallow as they’d fallen asleep against him, too hot for the way Tony’s mind raced in the dark and that was the tipping point, that was where there’d be no return from and that—

That was where Tony learned the difference between wanting, and _wanting_ , and he’s done his damnedest not to look back.

“We were here, the three of us,” and it’s weird, mostly, because when Tony tells stories about himself in a bed it’s usually with blissful nostalgia, and there’s some of that, sure—but it’s weird, because nostalgia’s meant for a thing gone by and this is a thing that beyond all likelihood, has stayed. 

And Tony’s seen some crazy shit these past years, really, but that—that it’s _stayed_?

Mindblowing. 

“We were here, and you asked me—”

“What happened in New York.”

Tony blinks. Bucky’s staring at him, through him, with the kind of singular intensity that should burn—Tony’s watched lasers bore through metal quicker, with less force than that fucking gaze, and Tony doesn’t get a chance to ask how: how Bucky knew the _when_ , the precise _what_ from the where. He doesn’t get to ask.

Then again: he doesn’t need to know.

 

“How many lifetimes, why,” Bucky sits up a little, but never lets go of his hold on Tony against his chest; tightens it, even, as he shifts their weight so he can rest his hand against the mess of scar tissue left from the reactor as Bucky’s eyes go there, as he whispers soft, reverent: 

“Why you got rid of...”

Tony’s eyes follow Bucky’s, and tries to figure out if he’d ever imagined ending up here, from that one moment. Tries to think if there was any viable input to predict _this_ , from that night so long ago.

But there’s no reactor, and so there’s nothing between the beat of Tony’s heart through his skin and bones and Bucky’s hand in kind, so Tony lets himself feel that, and find the only thing he’s got is:

“Yeah.”

“I'm sorry.” 

Tony stills; really not the response he was expecting, if he was expecting anything, but—

But Bucky’s hands on him don’t falter, so Tony trusts. It’s still new to him, but he trusts.

Practice, perfect: whatever.

“Not for wanting it,” Bucky says, like he knows where Tony’s head goes, and he probably does, Tony reminds himself, but that’s another thing that still feels new sometimes: being known that well, just for the sake of love. “But for asking, making you feel—”

And no. Nope. Nip that shit in the bud right now, because:

“Do you remember what I said?”

Bucky’s chest rises and falls where Tony’s less sprawled, more propped against it now, and when Tony watches Bucky stare at him, study him, like he knows the answer but not how it came to be, Tony lets his own exhale tease the hollow of Bucky’s throat, just so—just enough to raise the hairs on Bucky’s arms and hitch the rise-and-fall under Tony’s body.

“You,” Bucky gasps, and Tony knows it’s more for what’s going through his head than for the sensation Tony’s tried to pull from him but he’s going to let himself take some degree of credit for the shiver, the stammer—the playboy deserves it. 

And hell, given the point of the thoughts in that mind? He figures he can probably take credit for that too—not the genius. Something else in him, something that grew between this body and another, that Tony knows the name of but won’t pin down just now, just yet.

“You said that you'd look into it,” Bucky barely breathes, and seeks Tony’s gaze and stares at him, eyes so fucking wide, scared and hopeful in that _way_ he has, with that bleeding concern that Tony still can’t comprehend in a person, in a human being shaped and scarred by the most normal of scenarios that life has to deal out, let alone after what _Bucky’s_ gone through and yet there it is: that sheer, innate willingness to hurt in the name of sparing someone else their hurting and it’s that, among so much else, that makes Tony ache all the more for Bucky’s turmoil on that roof: weighing the causing of pain against the causing of more; a selfish need against an inborn desire to protect, and he’s worried, he’s worried for Tony in a way that’s not new, that Tony’d watched in the focus of Bucky’s eyes on Steve since they’d met, but that he’s only begun to recognise as directed the same toward himself.

Fucking insane, but he won’t goddamn question it. 

“Tony,” Bucky says his name in a way that’s not just wondering if Tony will wake up the next morning, rather than having drank himself to death. Bucky says his name like there’s something in Tony, deep and true and _Tony_ in a way that Tony’d never given much thought to, maybe never recognised or knew for sure was there: Bucky looks at him and says his name like Tony matters, and above all things that Bucky could want of him, with all his fucking heart, none of it is worth more than simply, just, _Tony_.

Again: fucking _insane_.

“There was an idea that wasn't on the list that night,” Tony presses on, quick as he can because Bucky shouldn't be afraid; because Tony learned out of nowhere, and adapted accordingly, that his ability, his _willingness_ to sacrifice a bit of energy toward “self-preservation” and “personal well-being” when he had two warm bodies, two people, two morons he cared for just that little bit more, but more than _enough_ over whatever project was waiting, hell—it’s been months, even since Tony had triggered the protocols that Steve had designed and Bucky had implemented on Tony’s system for JARVIS to lock Tony out of his own workspace if he was running the risk of overwork, or neglecting food and drink: and Tony hadn’t bothered trying to figure out how to disable the programming (though Tony’ll hand it to the icicles, they’re more skilled with tech than Tony’d ever have given them credit for), but Tony doesn’t bother with muddling through an override, because it’s possible, certainly, but it’ll be time consuming. And frankly?

Tony has two warm bodies, two people, two morons he’s ass over fucking tits about that are waiting for him, and being _there_ , with _them_ is a much better use of his time.

Tony’s always been susceptible to a good incentive, after all. A weakness he’s never been too resentful of, to be honest, and he’s certainly not about to start now.

“And it wasn’t on the list but should have been, because like, well, it was the obvious one but you cherry Twin Pop bastards caught me off my game,” Tony nips at Bucky’s neck, chastising in a way that’s really only arousing, which is the only kind of chastising Tony’s really up for, basically ever, so. “But it was, is, an idea that’s mine, or else, part mine, probably less than seventeen percent mine, but you know, still a little mine and so I knew what I was doing.”

Bucky's eyeing him with open skepticism. Tony may or may not deserve that, and he's gotten worse at lying to the men he loves, so he gives a little:

“Mostly.”

Bucky looks somewhat satisfied, if no less concerned. 

“It's promising.” Tony says bluntly, words escaping quick and without easing in and the look on Bucky’s face is horror, like, pure horror. And Tony can kind of see that, now, in retrospect. All the idle answers they'd thrown out that sleepy, desperate night they'd all shut down as fast as they rose, and rightly so—they'd been grasping at straws for wanting, and Tony’d mostly been willing to give any ground at all out of shock at the mere _possibility_ of being needed like that. So maybe Tony should have definitely eased into this. 

“Like, really promising,” he tacks on hopefully, but Bucky mostly just looks like he's going to be sick, so Tony thinks he may have missed the mark. 

Damn. 

“Are you,” Bucky's voice is deadly calm, deft as a blade in hand and deceptively sharp; never a good sign. Particularly in bed—that's like a crime in itself. “Tony, are you telling me that you've—”

“What do you know about Extremis?” 

Again, given the drop of that chiselled jaw: Tony probably should have eased in on that, too. 

“Enough,” Bucky finally says when his mouth remembers how to open _and_ close. “Enough, from Pepper,” his eyes go wider, then: impossibly fucking wider and then the worst happens, which is a heaving chest under Tony’s propped torso, and pounding heart besides because for Bucky that's the worst, that's the absolute worst is when he loses control for feeling or fearing too much and then:

“ _Tony_ —” he rasps, moans in real pain as his hands roam Tony’s body wherever he can reach, but the left hand most thoroughly, it's sensors taking every vital sign imaginable at every point that counts, searching out the fire beneath the skin, the telltale racing pulse, the threat of it all burning down, rather literally.

But Tony’s hands are on Bucky's, soon as Tony sees the frown that tells him Bucky's read what he needs to, and his worst fears haven't been confirmed. 

“It's fine,” Tony says, pressing the lengths of his fingers between Bucky's atop Tony's very-normally-warm skin. “I can give you every readout, every trial, every...everything,” Tony offers, swears it. “We only did the basic, most simple and safe human administration last week, which is why I was waiting, until you and Steve were both here, but,” and, well. 

Needs must and that shit. And Tony felt like the needs laid bare on the rooftop made telling Bucky now kind of a must. 

The only thing Bucky could do to hurt Tony now was to walk away, to leave at all; they were equals in that, all of them. 

Tony needed Bucky to know, as much as Tony himself needed to make it known beyond a fucking doubt. 

“ _Tony_ ,” Bucky starts, the gravity of it, what the question asked years ago, now, and the answer given, for all the risks: the gravity is sinking in, and fast—Tony can see it. 

“We don’t have data on what it’ll do longitudinally, because the old cocktail kind of went Molotov too fast for it to matter,” Bucky winces, but Tony presses on; “so with this, being _safe_ and all,” he emphasises pointedly;” we don't know how long the cell regeneration holds or lasts, but then, we don’t have any of that for the two of you super-studs, either. S’all guesswork,” Tony pauses for a breath and meets Bucky's eyes then as he admits:

“Even for me.”

And Bucky's eyes are bright enough, the pulse at his throat strong enough that Tony’s own breath is thin with it; his own chest tight with it. 

“But you said we didn’t need forever, so,” Tony starts, but Bucky leans in, so very fucking close. 

“Just long enough,” Bucky rasps, and Tony notices suddenly how Bucky's hands have gone around Tony's own, and hold on really fucking tight. 

“Right,” Tony nods, and gives into the overwhelming need to bring the hands around his own up to his lips, to hold just as tight and to live in the softest, gentlest, realist way he knows. 

A way he learned between two men who learned so long ago: best teachers for a heart learned late itself, Tony’s found. And sometimes it hurts, but the longer he stretches it forth and further and full, it feels all the more like he was born to feel just like this. 

And goddamn whatever consequences may come. 

“Right, and I think—”

“I’d take forever.” 

Tony freezes. He can't have heard right. 

“I’d take forever,” Bucky says again, because he understands enough of what Tony's face, Tony's body speaks against his will; “if you wanted it.”

“You’d,” Tony's voice cracks; he tries covering it by clearing his throat but it's a botched job from the get-go. “ _You’d_ want it?”

Bucky studies him for a long moment before smiling ruefully. 

“I’d ask you how you still don’t get it,” he says, a little exasperated, a little regretful; “except that’d be fuckin’ hypocritical.” He looks Tony square on-eye to eye before he asks: 

“You’re in this, right?”

Tony blinks. 

“What the _hell_ kind of question is that?”

“And you say I’m not a monster, not a ghost,” Bucky forges on, undeterred, slick bastard that he is. 

“I don’t just _say_ it, I _know_ it.”

“Then you’re not the spare fucking tire, Anthony Edward Stark,” Bucky says with all due conviction, hands surging up to cradle Tony’s face, to bring him close enough to feel Bucky's every breath, holding him like precious glass, so fucking dear. 

“And as much as I’ve ever wanted forever with anyone,” Bucky whispers, fierce; “I want it to be with you, too.”

“I,” Tony trips over his tongue, wavers on the edge of drowning in those eyes so close and it's tempting. It'd be so much easier. 

But he has to say it. 

“I love you, James.”

And Bucky breathes out slow, and leans his brow against Tony's. 

“I know,” he murmurs, and Tony's heart jumps before the words are even said because he knows without a doubt that they're coming. “I love you, too.”

Tony lifts his head. “I don’t know if we’ve got forever,” he admits, for reasons he doesn't understand but Bucky smiles slow, small, and shakes his head. 

“S’okay,” Bucky tells him, easing them down onto the bed, Bucky on top of Tony in a way that makes Tony’s whole world run hot. 

“For now, I think we’ve got enough to be gettin’ on with.”

And fuck, but does Tony agree wholeheartedly. 

_______________________________

“Morning, honeyplum.”

Tony knew the presence before he heard the voice. They both did, he and Bucky, else they'd both have already been wide awake; as it stands, Tony's nearer to sleep than anything else as Steve whispers in his ear, and Bucky's still dead to the world. 

“Too early,” Tony groans; he's got an arm around Bucky, and he reaches just a little to pat the space on Bucky's other side as instruction to Steve to get stripped and sprawled there like yesterday. 

“Sleep. Then talk.”

And Tony doesn't look up, but he can tell that Steve's taking in the scene of them: pudgier eyes than sleep alone accounts for, maybe. The sheer fact that Bucky's still out when he's the lightest sleeper of them all. 

Not to mention Tony, of all people, had just used the word “talk” to describe a thing to be done. Later. 

“Everything okay?” are the words that sum it up and Tony sighs, but not in a bad way. 

“Yeah,” and he believes it too; but he's fucking tired and he wants to go back to sleep. “Will be.” 

And Steve’s got a smile in his voice where it follows the slip of his uniform to the floor and the rustle of sheets as he crawls in, as he moulds to Bucky's body from the opposite side and reaches so that Tony’s arm around Bucky is dragged around him, too—as it should be. 

“Sounds good, then,” Steve yawns, and yeah. 

It's just as it always should be.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr](http://hitlikhammers.tumblr.com).


End file.
